Rex Ryan doesn't want to make guarantees this year (more on that in a moment). But he's more than happy to discuss how impressed he is with his young defensive linemen.

"You have Muhammad [Wilkerson] playing at an unbelievable level, I mean a Pro Bowl level," Ryan said, via CBSSports.com's Lisa Zimmerman. "You have this young man with that kind of ability and you see him getting better, I see him getting better each week."

He's also noticed Quinton Coples, the Jets' first-round pick this year, starting to adjust. "We always say he's country strong, and he is. What we're starting to do with him now is we're mixing him up as an inside player and an outside player," Ryan said.

Wilkerson's response to the compliments? To send them right back to Ryan. "I give the credit to him," Wilkerson said, according to Newsday's Anthony Rieber. "I'm proud to be a Jet. They brought me here and I'm going to continue to play like a Jet and just do the best I can for the defense."

Here's NJ.com's daily aggregation of Jets news from around the web:

• Years ago, Ryan would throw out a guarantee to the media about the Jets' chances. This season is a different story. "I'm not going to guarantee a playoff spot. I think part of that is, look, the fact that we're one game under .500, I think you're probably not in the playoff conversation. So, to me, we just need to keep our head down and keep winning games. We know the only way we can affect it is to win our games and then we'll see what somebody tells us," Ryan said, according to The Star-Ledger's Mike Vorkunov.

That hasn't stopped the media from covering the possibility of the Jets making the postseason. "In this season of the absurd, one of the most absurd things happened late Sunday afternoon: the Jets joined the AFC playoff chase. A season that has appeared lost for months, or at least stranded in the snowy wilderness, perked up," wrote The New York Times' Ben Shpigel.

But Ryan and the rest of the Jets aren't getting caught up in the hype just yet. "Guarantees are no good. That's one thing I've come to realize. As a team, you just got to take care of business. Talk is cheap. You still gotta go out, you still gotta play the game. As long as we keep that one-game-mentality approach, we'll be fine," safety Yeremiah Bell told Vorkunov.

• Yesterday, we mentioned speculation about the return of Braylon Edwards. Ryan did answer a question about him without saying much. "You guys know what I've always said about Braylon in the past," Ryan said, according to The Star-Ledger's Conor Orr. "So you know how I feel about him, but right now, I think we'll just focus on the guys we have."

• Orr also wrote Ryan said on ESPN Radio he would have put Tim Tebow into the game against the Jaguars if it was a blowout. He also said it was "probably a true statement" that Tebow was "disappointed" in coming to New York.